Rehoboth vocational students will now have the opportunity to attend Bristol-Plymouth Regional Vocational Technical School after a vote by the regional school committee on Thursday.

“We’re very excited and very grateful to the B-P school board for voting that way and allowing our students the opportunity (to attend Bristol-Plymouth),” said Rehoboth Selectmen Chair Joseph Tito.

All incoming vocational freshmen who have been accepted at Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School— where Rehoboth vocational students have previously attended — will have the opportunity to have their acceptances transferred to Bristol-Plymouth for the 2012-2013 school year, although they may still attend Tri-County if desired.

All students currently attending Tri-County will remain at Tri-County.

The town of Rehoboth was originally a member community of the Bristol-Plymouth Regional School District — having accepted the regional agreement at Town Meeting in 1967.

However, in the 1970s, the town — along with Dighton — stopped participating as an active member in the district in order to start a vocational program at Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School. Since then, vocational students in Rehoboth and Dighton have had the choice to attend Dighton-Rehoboth or Tri-County.

In order for Rehoboth students to attend Bristol-Plymouth this fall, the district’s school committee had to adopt a resolution recommended by Mitchell Chester, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Education.

The committee and the Rehoboth selectmen had previously sent a letter to the Department of Education stating their intention to reactivate Rehoboth’s membership and seeking approval from the department.

Since Rehoboth had never voted to formally withdraw from the district, Chester, in a letter to Bristol-Plymouth Superintendent Richard Gross, said he would allow the town to resume active membership if a resolution was passed specifying the town’s membership on the school committee, the effective date of active membership and a regional assessment for fiscal year 2013 and any past years.

“Our (school) committee looked at (the resolution), and they voted in the affirmative for that,” Gross said, “so as we stand right now, it looks like Rehoboth is once again an active member of the district.”

The resolution states that Rehoboth will resume active membership on Aug. 22, will appoint a Regional School Committee member effective January 2013 and hold elections for a member in November 2013 and will be charged an assessment for FY13 “equal to an amount reflective of an active participant.” The town shall also verify that is has no unpaid assessments to the district from previous years, the resolution states.

Gross said the exact figures for an FY13 assessment will be calculated according to the state’s formula, but the figures have not yet been calculated.

Tito said the cost to send students to Bristol-Plymouth will be lower than Tri-County.

“As a member of the district, obviously the assessment on this will be lower than Tri-County because they were charging us out-of-district tuition,” Tito said. “...In addition, the town will save considerable costs on transportation.”

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The cost to send 14 Rehoboth students to Tri-County in Franklin in fiscal year 2013 was estimated to be about $290,000, with $77,500 of that slated for transportation to and from Tri-County in Franklin.

Rehoboth will now join Taunton, Berkley, Middleboro, Bridgewater and Raynham as active members in the regional school district.